Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Peter LaBarbera tries to regain relevancy through lies

I think our friend Peter LaBarbera from Americans for Truth (in name only) is scrambling for attention.

Fresh from the disappointment of Hurricane Gustav killing his attempts to take pictures of "naked gay men" during Southern Decadence, Peter has been mute for a while. That is except for pathetic attempts to make Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin the new Christian martyr.

And now low and behold comes the Ray Boltz situation.

Boltz, a gospel singer who has come out as a gay man, seems to have gotten LaBarbera's undivided attention:

(Self-styled “queer” activists will say that Boltz was living a lie, but his four children do not owe their existence to a “gay” lifestyle.) I read the entire Blade story, but all you really need to know is in the final paragraph:

“This is what it really comes down to,” [Boltz] says. “If this is the way God made me , then this is the way I’m going to live. It’s not like God made me this way and he’ll send me to hell if I am who he created me to be … I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself.”

Wow, talk about presumption! This talented man is lost and he needs our prayers. Boltz may “feel” closer to God, but if you believe the Scriptures, he’s farther than ever from Him. We understand that the radical “gay” movement exalts its collective “feelings” over the Bible’s clear teaching — and certainly they are not alone in that regard — but each of us must choose between the truth and lies every day, and homosexual behavior is egregiously sinful, according to God’s Word. (See www.robgagnon.net if you are tempted to rationalize away the Bible’s clear condemnation of homosexual practice.) You just can’t sugarcoat that verdict, although these days even many Christians try.

Peter seems to go out of his way to bring up "success stories" of gays who have "changed" as if that negates Boltz's life story.

The fact of the matter is they don't. But that's not what attracted me to Peter's screed.

The subject of this blog has to do with how the anti-gay industry distorts studies and science to make some sort of case that homosexuality is a "dangerous lifestyle."

Would society ever hold up the men and women who tried to overcome addictions but then failed and returned to their destructive habit as the norm and role models for others? (Yes, homosexual practice is a destructive habit, as attested by the drastically shortened lifespans and high incidence of disease among men who practice same-sex sin.)

No Peter.

Now the links that Peter uses to make this case comes from earlier posts on his blog.

The link about "high incidence of disease" comes from a post where former Concerned Women for America spokesman Matt Barber castigated former National Gay and Lesbian Task Force head Matt Foreman because Foreman called HIV/AIDS a "gay disease" in a speech at the time. Barber infers that Foreman was admitting that homosexuality is a "deadly lifestyle."

In actuality, Foreman was challenging the gay community to take the initiative to prevent HIV/AIDS in our community.

Much like NAACP head Julian Bond wanted the black community to do when he called HIV/AIDS a "black disease."

While the medical consensus is that smoking knocks from two to 10 years off an individual’s life expectancy, the IJE study found that homosexual conduct shortens the lifespan of “gays” by an astounding “8 to 20 years” - more than twice that of smoking.

“[U]nder even the most liberal assumptions,” concluded the study, “gay and bisexual men in this urban centre are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by all men in Canada in the year 1871. … [L]ife expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men.”

That is only half the story.

In 2001, those same researchers went on record complaining that folks like Barber was distorting their work.

And Barber knows this because he says a few paragraphs later:

Not surprisingly, that same homosexual lobby and its codependent enablers in the mainstream media moved quickly to sweep the IJE study under the rug. Under tremendous pressure, the researchers who conducted the study even jumped into the political damage control fray issuing a statement which read, “[W]e do not condone the use of our research in a manner that restricts the political or human rights of gay and bisexual men or any other group.”

Matt Barber is a liar. There was never any "pressure" on these researchers.

And please bear in mind that Barber never went into detail as to what the pressure was. He tries to dimiss the letter as "political spin.

The second link Peter uses to try in order to refute Boltz's declaration of his homosexuality is one having to do with the controversy regarding Bush's pick for Surgeon General, James Holsinger.

You will remember that the Holsinger nomination failed because of intense scrutiny regarding his personal opinions about homosexuality and a paper he wrote about it. Holsinger disavowed the paper to the intense consternation of the anti-gay industry, LaBarbera in general.

In attacking Holsinger's decision to disavow the paper, Peter said:

So desperate are pro-”gay” advocates to force their Bible-rejecting myth on the culture that they downplay even serious health risks that result from embracing behaviors that a loving God proscribes. The result is that children in schools across the country are NOT being taught that there are special dangers, including HIV/AIDS, associated with homosexual behaviors. (See Dr. John Diggs’ paper, “The Health Risks of Gay Sex,” for more information.)

I talk about Diggs' paper in my book and have mentioned it several times in this blog. But the truth always stands repeating. This is the caliber of work that Peter finds credible regarding lgbts.

For those who have not read my book, let me give you an excerpt:

Twice, John R. Diggs includes the study done by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg in their book, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women, as indicative of the entire gay population. In one passage, he even refers to it as “a far ranging study of homosexual men . . .” But Bell and Weinberg never said that their findings were indicative of all gay men. They actually said “. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlikely that any investigator willever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

Diggs cites a Canadian study twice in order to claim that gays have a shorter lifespan than heterosexuals. But his citation of the study is a mischaracterization. In 2001, the six original researchers (Robert S. Hogg, Stefan A. Strathdee, Kevin J.P. Craib, Michael V. O’Shaughnessy, Julion Montaner, and Martin T. Schechter) who conducted that study have gone on record saying that religious conservatives (like Diggs) was distorting their work. - That's right. Just like Barber, Diggs is distorting the Canadian study.

In another section entitled Physical Health, Diggs claims that gays are victims of “gay bowel syndrome.” The term is an obsolete medical term. exist and even the CDC does not use it. In fact, if one was to look at the endnotes of Diggs’ study, he would find that two of the sources he quoted concerning “gay bowel syndrome” were from articles in published in 1976 and 1983, which is consistent with the years that the term existed. One last source was a letter to the editor printed in 1994 but Diggs does not make it clear as to whatwere the circumstances surrounding it.

Diggs generalizes convenience sample studies as indicative of the gay population at large. Diggs takes studies done in foreign countries and claims that they are indicative of the gay population at large.

Diggs claims that there are five distinctions between heterosexual and homosexual populations including levels of promiscuity, physical health, mental health, lifespan, and monogamy. However, he spends very little time comparing the two dynamics. He uses all of his time castigating gay populations.

Diggs uses an out of date book, The Gay Report (published in 1979) to claim that gays are engaging in deviant sexual practices. Only once does he attempt to tie the alleged deviant practices of gays in 1979 to present day; and to do so, he cites two events that took place regarding bondage workshops. However, there is a strong indication that heterosexuals took part in these events as well as gays. Diggs ignores this dynamic.

Nothing that I am saying is new to Peter. He knows that he is using bad sources because I as well as others have pointed it out to him.

But he continues to ignore what we say as if that will make his distortions true.

I think in the case of his attack on Ray Boltz, he has taken a page from the McCain campaign: repeat a lie even after the truth has been discovered.

Sorry Peter but it's not working for them. What in the world makes you think it will work for you?

2 comments:

Apparently if a gay person can procreate with a woman that means he's not gay, at least according to the fundaloons. Then again, that's exactly how they get to claim so much "success" with their so-called ex-gay programs. Every time a person pretends to be straight for any length of time in order to please others (God, Jesus, the church, family, etc.) they call it a success.

Interesting how lying is a violation of one of their precious Commandments yet they have no problem doing it repeatedly, nor do they care if gay people do it for the rest of their lives. Just so long as they don't act gay.

Here's a link to an interesting article that suggests that poor mental and sexual health among homosexuals is due to "internalised homonegativity" rather than due to homosexuality itself. What's most ironic is that this would mean that any heath problems associated with being gay would actually be due to people like Peter Labarbera who spread negative attitudes towards homosexuality, rather than what they advocate against.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080917145418.htm

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.